Four Teams, Four Topics - An Exercise in Brainstorming

Four Teams, Four Topics - An Exercise in Brainstorming

Results are at

http://www.agilephilly.com/page/brainstorming-march-15-2016

This is not the "Four Corners" Open Space that I want to repeat from Seimens 2012.  

This exercise will be done by long-time member Mike Palladino, PMP, CSM, and speaker at the 2014 Half Day Conference.

The night begins by voting on 4 different topic ideas.
We split into 4 teams with 4 facilitators (Champions for the topics)

In the 1st Session, Team 1 starts brainstorming Topic A on a flip chart for a set time limit (5 or 10 min ).  When done,  Facilitator of Topic A takes the work done and goes to Team 2.  This second team then refines or adds to Topic A in this 2nd session.

Meanwhile, for the second session, back at Team 1, the
Facilitator for Topic D has brought the work from Team 4 to Team 1, who then adds to Topic D.

This round robin continues with all four teams swapping
the topics in succession.   

In all, each team will review all 4 topics.  The teams stay at the same table, and it’s the facilitators who rotate around the room with the topics

When the original topic returns to the original team - a harvesting / gleaning process is done, where the Team takes 5-10 minutes to review all the additional feedback, and prepares a summary.  Each team has a representative to stand up and give a brief summary of the ideas. 

It’s preferable to have someone other than the facilitator as it now gets 8 people involved as Champions, instead of just the original 4 facilitators.

Suggested Topics are below, but others can be suggested and voted.  Specifics will be needed. (The challenge for the facilitators is to make sure people are not responding with theory, and are giving practical feedback on previous interactions they’ve had in the past.)

- Ways to Improve Agile Philly (a mandatory topic) 

- Ways to hold others accountable on the team
- Ways to educate new managers to SCRUM
- Ways to interact with typical PMO’s familiar with waterfall
- Ways to educate a scrum master to run a scrum and not hold a status meeting
- Providing a rough, initial estimate of a project.  Yes, estimates come later, but there are times when a rough estimate is needed.  i.e. 2-3 months, 6-8 months, etc.  

Directions to Vertex are on the Directions Page http://www.agilephilly.com/page/directions-to-meetings

Food sponsor for this event is Vertex